Creator Blazie151 has released Homebrew Stealthing Utility v1.3.5 that allows you to stealth a homebrew application or game as any PSN demo or full game and choose what you stealth the homebrew as. No PSN but will make PSN safer once its restored, he also has added a stealthed version of multiMAN w/ this app ready for download.

Current Feature List:-Stealthed pkg file works on all firmware versions (3.15, 3.41, 3.55) including GH 3.55

-Supports all pkg files

-Supports run time arguments so you can open this program with a file or even automate it

-Grabs the GameIDs and homebrew names automatically

-Creates the -conf files automatically

-Creates the stealth pkg automatically

-Adds an additional user specified file if selected

-Can sign the file automatically if selected (3.55GH mainly)

-Pause checkbox allows manual modification of files before pkg'ing

-Works on Virtual Machines, runs with .net 3.5

Known Issues:-Some virus protection programs don't like it.

This is because it creates all dependency files during run time, and some virus protection programs don't like exe files appearing from thin air. If this happens to you, please add the dir this utility is stored in to your excluded list in your virus scanner.

Today, I'm releasing an application, called Homebrew Stealthing Utility v1.3.5, that I created that allows you to stealth a homebrew application or game as any PSN demo or full game that you want. Instead of having it possibly affect your future gaming needs, or having 10,000+ people all playing the same "game", YOU can choose what you stealth the homebrew as. Normally, this would just appear as game sharing; for double protection or the paranoid bunch, download the demo first and it'll be added to your purchase history.

Ok, before anyone even asks - NO THIS NOT ALLOW YOU ACCESS TO PSN. It's an application that will make PSN safer once its restored. Trollers on this thread saying useless crap like "how does this help without PSN access" will not be appreciated.

So here's the theory I cooked up from getting information from multiple sources and seeing the data and logs myself, cross-referencing things like what was being played and used, when, how long, log cleaning and safety measures used, and online habits. Needless to say it was a lot of data to sift through to fully formulate my thoughts. Some of this is known, some of it I haven't seen on the net at all, so here goes...

Part 1 - Any homebrew you use puts a line in your log files. The log files are not normally wiped by going online. By wiping your own logs, you give reason for flags. The only time your logs would be erased normally is if you formatted your hard drive. When you log in 50 different times with blank logs, it would obviously be something noticeable on the server side, even if $ony is not monitoring it now. It takes more than 5 minutes to format your hard drive, pop it another game and get online. So when you log out, change your game with your boot manager, and log back in with clean logs again, it would look very fishy. All $ony would need to do is cache logs between log ins for a predetermined amount of time and wait for people to start triggering flags and warning that could turn into bans. For this reason, ALL HOMEBREW SHOULD BE STEALTHED!

Part 2 - If you can see what your friends are playing online, don't you think $ony can too? The way "stealth" homebrew is currently stealthed is by having it look like a game. The downfall is that you can't play that game in future, because the homebrew files are using that folder. Also, and a big one here, if your online with that stealth homebrew, it shows that its being played from the hard drive. Now, to me, that looks like a huge red flag waving around with a jumping kid screaming "$ony come ban me." I mean, if your friends can see that don't you think $ony can? I would think that would be immensely easy to detect. No gameid starting in B (as in BLES00000) should be listed as being played from the hard drive. I would think detecting this would be more than easy for $ony to implement, especially since the average user can see that now.

As for only releasing the homebrew stealthed as a single game, don't you thing it looks weird when 10,000+ people start using a game that's not popular? I know that question has been asked here before. Even if they can't ban someone directly for it, I would think $ony could at least monitor those consoles closer than the rest cause again, it just looks fishy.

Now the solution. What's the best way to stealth homebrew, without losing ability to play certain games from disc if you wanted to, and have everything look kosher and perfect, even while online? I decided that using PSN demos would be the safest. They never really get played so its not interfering with your regular gaming or other homebrew, you don't have to ever clean your logs, and your friends and $ony can't see you playing a disc-based game from the hard drive.

So why now, why not wait until PSN is back? Well, that's simple. PSN is coming back, it's inevitable. Why not already practice good stealthing so when PSN comes back your not scrambling to clean your logs and worrying that something slipped through the cracks?

This application supports all pkg files that are not firmware pkg files. You can select an extra file to include in the USRDIR directory (mainly implemented that for MultiMan use, since that file is needed to play backups and not included in the MultiMan package). Also, it supports pkg file creation for 3.41 and 3.55, as well as a pause function for manual file manipulation prior to re-packaging. It also saves your output directory and firmware selection for future use, as well as run time arguments. Drag a pkg file on top of it or assign pkg files to open with it in windows, and it will load the first field with that data.

The only applications I've seen have some problems with being stealthed are programs with callbacks to a static eboot.bin folder (like dev_blind), I'm working on a fix for that. Also, any program like MultiMan, that has an options ini file, needs that file modified with the new gameid in order for all the functions, such as covers, themes, etc, to work. All the other functions work fine though. If you'd like, check the pause option and modify the file manually. You also need to change the option to clear the logs when MultiMan boots. I'll work on a solution for this as well, but for now I'll also share my stealthed MultiMan with you all so you don't have to stealth that one if you don't want.